Table of contents for April 2014 in Outside

SCOTTY ROGERS To get this shot of Kevin Chirico BASE jumping from the top of Looking Glass Rock in Moab, Utah, last July, Rogers stashed his camera at the bottom of the rocks, made the first jump, and rushed to capture Chirico from inside a nearby sandstone arch. “At just 127 feet, this is one of the lowest BASE jumps in the area, which makes for a very technical and immediate deployment,” says the photographer, who lives in Moab. “A lot of people climb and rappel here, but I find that a parachute descent is much faster.” THE TOOLS: Nikon D800, 24 –70mm f/2.8 lens, ISO 200, f/8, 1/320 second ANDY ANDERSON Last December, when Anderson and Montana fly-fishing guide Jenny Grossenbacher headed for the Olympic Peninsula, near the town…

Meet the New Boss “EVERYONE’S STILL climbing Everest in exactly the same way as in the early nineties—in two and a half months,” says Alpenglow Expeditions founder Adrian Ballinger. A wiry, British expat who lives in Olympic Valley, California, Ballinger has some big ideas about how best to ascend the world’s tallest mountain. More specifically, he thinks it can be done in half the time that most expeditions take. Starting this spring, the 38-year-old veteran guide will begin screening small groups of experienced clients, charging them top dollar, and requiring them to use hypoxic tents to begin acclimatizing at home, so they can fly by helicopter directly into the 14,180-foot town of Dingboche, a day’s walk from Base Camp. (Climbers more typically spend ten days trekking from the town of…

WHEN I TELL PEOPLE that I haven’t changed much since the eighth grade, they usually laugh. But I’m not kidding. I still like the same things I did as a prepubescent Midwestern boy—tennis, Saskatchewan, strawberry-rhubarb pie. When I instinctively crank the radio to “Electric Avenue,” I’m reminded of how little I’ve actually evolved. This happened the other day, too, when I first glimpsed Oakley’s new Frogskin sunglasses. Seeing them, I recalled the summer when E.J., an older and infinitely more worldly neighbor of mine, showed up to baseball practice with a pair of the original Frogskins. If there was anything cooler than those translucent frames and gleaming purple-mirrored lenses, it had yet to arrive at the local mall. The new ones, called the Frogskin LX, are even more impressive. The…

ALESSA QUIZON MAKAHA, HAWAII WOMEN’S surfing is at a crossroads. For the past three years, the Association of Surfing Professionals’ Women’s World Tour has struggled with sponsorship dollars, and the organization was forced to cut women out of the sport’s world series, the Triple Crown, which takes place in Hawaii in November and December. It was bad news for a pool of talented young Americans, including 20-yearold Alessa Quizon. But this year, for the first time, Quizon will be a regular on the World Tour, and she’s walking into the limelight at the right moment. The ASP has a new CEO, former NFL marketing director Paul Speaker, and last year it signed a deal to air all 2014 events live via Facebook, with highlights on ESPN. It will be the…

A. C.O. Bigelow Premium Razor for Mach 3, $80 This steel and fauxebony razor adds a touch of class to an otherwise routine task. bigelowchemists.com B. Leg Lube, $9 Spiked with aloe and tea tree oil, this silky gel goes on smooth without any foamy mess and stays slick for easy shaving. leglube.com C. Mad Alchemy PreRide Oil, $23 Cedar and eucalyptus oils in this warmweather embrocation help prime your legs to ride. madalchemy.com D. Rapha Shaving Cream and Post Shave Lotion, $20 and $30 For a one-two combo, there’s nothing better than this cream and cooling aloe-based lotion. rapha.cc E. Hibros Depil Sport Cream, $26 Want a longer-term solution? This sportspecific depilatory lotion (think Nair) weakens hair follicles with alkali salts, so they fall out at the root. albabici.com…

Bun Lai is rolling rocks IN THE DARK A LONG A CRAGGY COAST LINE, CLAWING ON ALL FOUR SAFTER THE LITTLE CRABS THAT BURST LIKE ROACHES FROM UNDERNEATH, STUFFING THEM IN TO A BUCKET. With his spotlight and his pail and his perfect snap-on hair, he looks like an action figure. We are on a clandestine mission that began at 10:30 P.M. at Miya’s, Bun’s New Haven, Connecticut, sushi restaurant, where I asked him who did the foraging for the restaurant, which has become famous for serving invasive organisms. “You’re looking at him,” he replied. So here we are, at low tide on a steamy summer night, scrabbling around a closed Connecticut beach park. When the crabs bolt, you must quickly slap your hands on top of them, then get…

“He saved 50 rhinos. But he’s still a con man.” —INVESTIGATOR, SOUTH AFRICAN REVENUE SERVICE HE TURNED A CORNER in the Emperors Palace Casino and froze. Peter, Chai, and the others lingered near some slot machines. He stared at them for a moment, looked left and right, then headed for the exit. Had they seen him? It was June 2010. He had cut off communication two years earlier, after the deal had gone bad. They’d lied to him. He’d ended up in a reeking 13-by-20-foot jail cell with 23 other guys for three days in the boondocks east of Johannesburg. Sure, Chai had paid his $20,000 fine. But where was Chai when his identity—John Olivier, 51— appeared beneath the headline “TWO GUILTY OF POSSESSION OF RHINO HORNS”? Where was Chai…

BEST FOR: TOSSING IN THE TRUNK Fjällräven No. 4 Large Think of it as your dad’s old gym bag on steroids. This duffel is constructed from the Swedish company’s water-resistant waxed canvas and features sturdy leather handles and a beefy zipper with a quick-grab ring handle. At 50 liters, it’s just big enough to swallow what you need for an overnighter at your in-laws’ beach house. Better yet, it’s tough enough to carry your camping kitchen on a canoe trip to the Boundary Waters. $175; fjallraven.us BEST FOR: FREQUENT FLIERS Burton Wheelie Flight Deck The biggest challenge with carry-on bags: getting them shut after you’ve overstuffed them. The Flight Deck makes this easy, thanks to stretchy material flanking the zippers. Coming in at just under the max carry-on size for…

—Andrew tilin, Consumer Reports Did cavemen eat bugs? That may seem like an odd question to lead off an issue packed with adventure-travel stories and headlined by our third-annual installment of the outside Travel Awards, but surprises are one of the things I love about working here. For months we’ll believe we’re assembling an issue that’s all about, say, adventure or fitness. Along the way, however, a strange and entirely unplanned subtheme will materialize— one we won’t even recognize until we’re close to sending our pages to the printer. This month’s stealth theme? Extreme culinary frontiers. Or, as senior editor Abe Streep put it in an e-mail to me one night, “We have a lot of critter eating going on in April.” Which brings me back to my question, the…

FOR THE ENTIRETY of its existence, Base Camp on Mount Everest has been selfpoliced. No more. After last year’s brawl on the Lhotse Face, in which European alpinists Ueli Steck, Simone Moro, and Jonathan Griffith clashed with a group of Sherpas fixing ropes, Nepal’s tourism ministry has decided to step in. Come April, a nine-member armed security contingent made up of Nepali soldiers and police will keep order in the temporary city, which swells to nearly 1,000 people during peak climbing season. “By the time the first expedition team arrives in Base Camp, our group will be in place,” says Maddhu Sudan Burlakoti, a joint secretary of the tourism ministry. “The team will ensure security of the climbers and also get involved in rescue operations. We’ll also make sure that,…

THE RELIABLY volatile mashup of American hubris and untrammeled wilderness has kept adventure writers on the bestseller list for decades. As two excellent new nonfiction works by Outside contributors demonstrate, the formula is as bankable as ever. Peter Stark’s Astoria: Astor and Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire ($27, Ecco) chronicles John Jacob Astor’s plan to monopolize the global fur trade in 1810, when he launched an elaborate scheme that, Stark writes, “would probably dwarf even the largest mergers of our era.” It all hinged on establishing a trading post at the mouth of the Columbia River, where Astor sent two expeditions: one by sea and the other overland, on the route established two years earlier by Lewis and Clark. Astor was a poor judge of leaders, and both parties were almost…

FIVE YEARS AGO, when the American microbrew scene was exploding, craft beers were still largely made from grains and hops grown by factory farms. Slowly, though, brewers began embracing the loca-vore trend, planting hops on nearby acreage (like Michigan’s Founders) or using local spring water (like Rockmill in Ohio). Today that philosophy has reached its apex: adventurous brewers are creating distinctly regional beers by foraging their own ingredients, among them chanterelle mushrooms, sassafras leaves, and vanilla leaf. (See “Out of the Woods,” right.) Sampling them takes some dedication—most are available only on tap—but their numbers are growing. This spring you’ll find them at dozens of breweries across the country. The foraged-beer trend got its start in 2011, in Colorado, where artist and hophead Eric Steen, 31, took eight homebrewers on…

TRAIL RUN Griffith Park More than 56 miles of mountainous fire roads, bridle paths, and dirt trails allow you to piece together runs of any length and intensity, thanks to the park’s 1,200 feet of vertical. ROAD RUN San Vicente Boulevard The wide median in the posh stretch from Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica to Montana Avenue in Brentwood creates a perfect sevenmile out-and-back. MOUNTAIN BIKE Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area There are hundreds of miles of trails here, with 150 of them open to mountain bikers. The Zuma Ridge and Backbone trails, just west of Kanan-Dume Road, offer the best lungbusting climbs and fast descents. ROAD BIKE San Gabriel River Bike Trail This scenic path paral lels the river for 38 uninterrupted miles, from the base of the…

Running over a rock could send me flying into the traffic to my left, where, at 6:30, commuters are speeding to beat Austin’s rushhour backups. But all I care about is covering a quarter-mile fast enough to catch the guys in my Wednesday-morning group ride. Its potential to ease my sadness with 30 miles of punishing pace outweighs the risks. It’s February 2013, the bleak middle of the most miserable winter of my life. Just a year and a half ago, my wife, Madeleine, and I, along with our two children, were living in the Bay Area, with a big move ahead of us. We had committed to relocating from our home near San Francisco, where I grew up, to Texas, where she’s from. For me, the decision to leave…

CHOOSING a camera to travel with usually entails a frustrating compromise: either you go with a DSLR that captures greatlooking images but is bulky, or you bring a lightweight pointand-shoot and settle for subpar pics. These four break the mold. Olympus OM-D E-M1 (PICTURED) The E-M1 is part of a new gen eration that ditches the DSLRfattening internal mirrors without sacrificing image quality. It’s dust-and splashproof, captures 16-megapixel stills at speeds up to 1/8,000 of a second, and accepts an endless array of lenses. $1,400; getolympus.com RUNNERS-UP BEST FOR: CARRY-ONS Sony Cyber-shot DSC RX100 II The super-packable Cyber-shot RX100 II camera to travel with usually entails a frustrating compromise: either you go with a DSLR that captures greatlooking images but is bulky, or you bring a lightweight pointand-shoot and settle…

Scout shirt by Filson ($245; filson.com); Striped shirt ($70) and Beacon pants ($55) by Nautica (nautica.com); Santa Cruz Slip-On Leather shoes by Keen ($85; keenfootwear.com); Boulder Traditional Light Weight Crew socks by Farm to Feet ($18; farmtofeet.com) CREATURE COMFORTS The right clothes to keep your cool in any locale Short Cruiser Jacket by Filson ($260; filson.com); Alpha Linen shirt ($68) and Alpha Khaki pants ($68) by Dockers (dockers.com); Motorboat shoes by Sanuk ($90; sanuk.com); Ranger hat by Coal ($60; coalheadwear.com); Boulder Traditional Light Weight Crew socks by Farm to Feet ($18; farmto feet.com); Weekend bag by Kaufmann Mercantile ($198; kaufmannmercantile.com)…

ACT OUR AGE February’s “the right stuff,” our annual list of awesome things, can always be counted on to generate lively conver sa tion about what did or did not make the cut. This year, at least for one of you, we appear to have nailed it. I agree with everything on your list. I’m 14 years old, and kids my age are focused on anything but your perfect things. I find it hard to understand why they all want to Snapchat for hours. I’d rather put myself through grueling activities like climbing fourteeners. You guys think like me. JACK SANDERS1 DENVER, COLORADO You wrote that ziploc bags are “a relatively painless way to end it all.” If this was some veiled attempt at humor, it missed the mark. Obviously,…

IN 2012, when Joby Ogwyn, a climber and BASE jumper from Santa Barbara, California, dropped from a plane at 27,000 feet and flew past Mount Everest in a wingsuit, eventually landing at Base Camp, observers were impressed. But that was just a warm-up. This May, 39-year-old Ogwyn will climb Everest, then perform a wingsuit jump from the summit in a made-for-TV spectacle torn from the Felix Baumgartner playbook. Backing him is the Discovery Channel, which will carry the event live and produce multiple specials about the jump. All told, some 300 people are working on the project, making it one of Discovery’s biggest undertakings. “It’s not going to be easy,” says Ogwyn. “This is by far the most complex stunt that’s ever been done.” Here, Ogwyn and representatives from Discovery…

1974: Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, about Los Angeles’s water wars, overshadows the previous year’s Soylent Green, a sci-fiepic about pollution and overpopulation starring CHARLTON HESTON. 1985: Farm Aid. 1996:WOODY HARRELSON is arrested for hanging banners from the Golden Gate Bridge in defense of a redwood grove. 2006: An Inconvenient Truth; DARYL HANNAH is arrested for chaining herself to a tree for three weeks. 2007: LEONARDO DICAPRIO’s 11th Hour is panned. 2008: Discovery airs Battleground Earth, TOMMY LEE and LUDACRIS’s green-living competition. 2009: HANNAH is arrested for protesting coal mining in West Virginia; GISELE BÜNDCHEN is named UN environmental ambassador. 2010: JESSICA BIEL and EMILE HIRSCH climb Kilimanjaro to raise awareness about water shortages. 2012: MARK RUFFALO, with YOKO ONO and SEAN LENNON, starts Artists Against Fracking; HANNAH is arrested for protesting…

The package’s contents were chirping loudly—plaintively, almost—and room mates Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz, both seniors at Brown University, began to question their plan. But they’d come too far to quit, having ordered the 2,000 crickets from an online pet-food store. That evening, Lewis and Sewitz froze the insects, then toasted them in a 220-degree oven before running them through a Vitamix blender. The process resulted in a half-pound of smooth, antenna-free cricket flour. Lewis and Sewitz then mashed honey and dried fruit into the flour and molded the paste into protein bars, which they brought to their local CrossFit gym. The verdict? The bars, containing about 40 ground-up crickets each, tasted surprisingly good. “Like almond butter,” said one tester. Last May, after graduating, Lewis and Sewitz moved to Brooklyn,…

Best New Lodge Winner Awasi Patagonia Lodge, Chile It’s not hard to find a great lodge near Torres del Paine National Park and its larger-than-life scenery. It is tough to find your own private villa, though. The recently opened Awasi Patagonia Lodge has 12 of them, each equipped with a hot tub overlooking Laguna Sarmiento and the Sierra Contreras mountains. The modern glass-andwood villas come with a 4x4 and a guide to help you explore the 600,000-acre park however you choose, be it on a rigorous hike to look for a nandu (an ostrichlike bird) or a horseback ride through the park’s rugged hills. Come home to feast on scallop carpacio or salmon with vanilla oil. From $2,100 for three nights, all-inclusive; awasipatagonia.com Runner-Up Mallard Mountain Lodge, British Columbia The…

I’m supposed to go flying over New Zealand’s South Island with the director of the world’s largest guidebook company, but I’m feeling haggard. Last night, Daniel Houghton and I made a little tour of Queens town’s bars: Winnies, the Buffalo Club, Zephyr, a few other places. There was a retractable roof, a lot of Red Bull and vodka, dancing and yelling, and a video of a man in a wingsuit tearing through narrow canyons. I left the last place—I think it was the Boiler Room— before Houghton did. “I don’t feel anything yet,” he said, ordering another drink around 2:30 A.M. But when I knock on his hotel-room door at 7:30, Hough ton, now 25, is chipper. The space is fastidiously organized: bed made, camera gear in one neat pile,…

DAWA TEMBA SHERPA, 50, of REI Adventures, has been leading trips in the Himalayas for 18 years. 1. At the top of the world, nothing is more crucial than your sleeping bag. Dawa Temba uses the REI Expedition ($480; rei.com). The 700-fill down provides superior warmth, and the water proof shell has a pass-through pocket, so you can get what you need with out leaving your cocoon. 2 and 3. Lowa’s Renegade GTX Mid boots ($225; lowaboots.com) keep out the pebbles that litter the trek to Base Camp, and the perforated footbed increases breathability while reducing friction. Dawa Temba pairs his with Smartwool Hiking Light Crew socks ($21; smartwool.com). 4. REI’s Traverse 30 daypack ($100) is basic and fits everything Dawa Temba needs. “Sun-screen, sun glasses, water bottles— every thing,”…